Reviewed by Robert Hull
Stars Artur Zmijewski, Maja Ostaszewska, Andrzej Chyra, Danuta Stenka, Jan Englert, Maja Komorowska, Wladyslaw Kowalski
Written by Andrzej Wajda, Wladyslaw Pasikowski &
Przemyslaw Nowakowski
Certification UK 15
Runtime 118 minutes
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Make no mistake, Katyn will leave you feeling angry, horrified, and possibly even heartbroken. It is a film with a bleak message but an important one: remember.
At the beginning of the second world war the Soviet Red Army made incursions into eastern Poland taking control of almost the entire area. Polish forces were rounded up, turned into POWs and sent to internment camps. Many Polish officers were from the intelligentsia and viewed as a threat by Stalin’s USSR.
By October 1940, the detained officers were being held in camps at Kozielsk, Starobielsk and Ostashikovo until a Communist Party Politburo decision was taken to execute them. 15,000 Polish POWs were subsequently murdered in the forest at Katyn and at military bases in Tver and Kharkov.
The truth of this is complicated by war. When German forces advanced east, in 1943, they uncovered the graves, and blamed the USSR. The Soviet regime countered the claims, telling the world the Germans were responsible for the outrage. [Only in 1990 did USSR authorities confirm that these war crimes were carried out by Soviet forces.]
Andrzej Wajda’s fictionalised account chooses to focus on several families’ involvement, but rather than telling the story from a soldier’s viewpoint opts to highlight the patience, struggle and grief on the home front from wives and mothers waiting for loved ones to return.
As director Wadja says: “I see my film as a story of a family separated forever, about great illusions and the brutal truth about the Katyn crime.”
And there is no denying his commitment to the film, or to the cause of never letting this crime fade from memory. However, while the first two-thirds provide a bleak but coherent narrative, the last lacks structure, and the film’s emotional power is drained as a result.
Wadja adds too many sub-plots without explanation, context or timeframe, and the final reel – as brutal and convincing as it is – fails to recognise that a strong point has already been made.
While its historical relevance is absolutely necessary, the reality of Katyn, as a movie, is well-intentioned but less than satisfying. Film doesn’t have to be a happy-go-lucky playground all the time, but when you look to portray tragedy it requires a dispassionate aspect amid the polemic.